One Man's Notes on Movies and Other Life Obsessions by Chuck Wilson

December 30, 2009

Colin Firth, the British
actor who wooed Bridget Jones in two films and who somehow
managed to retain his dignity while singing an ABBA tune in Mamma Mia!, looks a bit bleary-eyed, as
if he’s been standing before his hotel-room mirror and splashing cold water on
his face, cajoling himself to keep going. The night before, Firth had attended
a Mann’s Chinese premiere of his new film, A
Single Man, and then dashed to CenturyCity to receive a humanitarian award
from BAFTA, the BritishAcademy of Film and Television Arts. “I
wish I’d been a little more compos mentis to enjoy it,” Firth says. “So many of
the wonderful things that happen around a film — celebrations, awards, all that
— happen to jet-lagged people who are strung out on coffee or self-medicating
on sleeping pills, and God knows what else. So much of what gets quoted is
uttered by the barely conscious.”

Firth,
49, is destined for a few more late nights in the months to come. With the Best
Actor award from the Venice Film Festival already on his
mantel, Firth is considered an awards-season front-runner for his performance
in A Single Man, fashion
designer–turned-filmmaker Tom Ford's adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's revered 1964
novel. Firth plays George, an L.A.
college professor grieving the death of his longtime lover, Jim (Matthew Goode),
in a car accident. As with the novel, the film follows George over the course
of one day, beginning with the moment he opens his eyes in the morning. “Waking
up begins with saying am and now,” the novel famously begins. I’ve
brought my old hardcover edition of the book along to our interview, and Firth
thumbs through it, saying, “Such a magnificent opening.”

George
is the role of a lifetime, and even though Ford always wanted him for the part,
it’s one that Firth almost didn’t get. The two men are represented by the same
talent agency, CAA, but when Ford was told that Firth was booked solid, the
first-time director cast another actor. Still, Firth lingered in his mind. “I
was scheduled to start shooting in two months with this other actor, when I saw
Colin at the Mamma Mia!
premiere in London,” Ford recalled during a recent phone
call. “And I’m standing there talking to Colin, looking him up and down,
hanging on his every word, and afterward, when I got into the car with my
boyfriend, Richard, I yelled, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck! I can’t believe he’s not going
to be George. I just can’t believe it.’ ”

Perhaps
the movie gods were equally dismayed because the original actor soon bowed out
of the project, prompting Ford to take a plane from his summer home in New
Mexico to London — and a meeting with Firth. “I wasn’t completely convinced at
first,” the actor admits. “It was a beautiful script,
but Tom was a fashion designer, not a director. But when we talked, his vision
of the film became clear, and the fact that he’d chosen this material already
said something to me. This isn’t a story about beautifully dressed people. It’s
about grief and isolation.”

In
a daring departure from the novel, Ford has George planning to commit suicide
at day’s end, a choice that gives the film shape and propulsion. “Bringing in a
potential suicide intensifies what would otherwise be ordinary about the day,”
Firth says. “George sees the child next door every morning of his life, but on
this day, his last maybe, she becomes a precious piece of earthly matter; the
face of a beautiful young man an angel; the sunset rich and overwhelming. The
movie’s about a man being reintroduced to the life he’s decided to say good-bye
to.”

All
of this may sound overly serious, but the film is filled with surprising humor.
At one point, George tries to find the right place in which to shoot himself —
in his bed, inside a sleeping bag, in the shower — but he can’t get
comfortable; he can’t find his spot. Zipped inside the sleeping bag, gun in
hand, George flops around like a trapped fish. Although the theater remained
absolutely silent, as if audience members weren’t sure laughter was
appropriate, the scene made me laugh out loud. “I don’t think desperation and
humor are mutually exclusive,” Firth declares. “I think George knows that he
looks a bit ridiculous. He has a wryness about his fate and his decision. I
love it when Charlie (played by Julianne Moore) asks him what his New Year’s resolution is going to be, and
he says, ‘I’m going to give up the past completely.’ ”

Firth
smiles. “I really like George. I haven’t been able to shake him. I keep
thinking he’s out here in the world, for real. I’m hoping I run into him.” (Chuck Wilson)